The overjustification effect is an undesirable cognitive phenomenon. It can cause us to abandon activities that we find intrinsically valuable once we are presented with a prize or money for doing the activity. Instead of the rewards adding value to the activity, they take away from it. Consider the saying, “money can’t buy you happiness.” The overjustification effect captures this belief by suggesting that intrinsic motivation and enjoyment are diminished by money.

The overjustification effect and job satisfaction

The overjustification effect can be considered one of the reasons why we so often complain about our jobs, even if we are interested in what we are doing. Since we are getting paid for completing tasks at work, we attribute our salary as the primary reason for what we do. 

Yet, it’s not as though working for free is sustainable or realistic. Bills still need to be paid. Does the overjustification effect mean we shouldn’t do something we love as our job? That seems counter-intuitive. Instead, the overjustification effect might tell us that keeping some of our hobbies as just hobbies—rather than trying to benefit monetarily from them—is essential and will prevent the loss of intrinsic value in that activity. 

Motivation and habit-building

Relying on intrinsic motivation is particularly important when we’re trying to build new habits, like cooking at home instead of eating out or exercising regularly. When it comes to exercise, for example, intrinsic rewards might include an inherent enjoyment in your chosen activity, stress reduction, or a sense of personal accomplishment. These internal motivators can make it easier to turn intentional exercise behavior into habit.¹¹ However, expecting some type of reward for exercising can have a negative effect on our intrinsic motivation. This might mean exercising solely to impress others, look a certain way, or justify our food choices.¹² The problem occurs when we start to feel like we’re forced to engage in exercise to gain these rewards rather than wanting to engage in exercise because the activity in itself makes us feel good. Suddenly, a behavior that may have initially felt internally motivating now feels like something we have to do, so we no longer want to do it.

Motivation is hugely important, especially in today’s society, where we are bombarded with endless options for how to spend our time. Being motivated to perform a task often improves performance; therefore, it is important for companies and leaders to understand how best to motivate people. Without being intrinsically motivated, people can lose sight of why they want to partake in an activity. This can result in people quitting their jobs, giving up on school, and casting aside their passions. Lacking motivation can also be a contributor to depression, and in turn, ends up being a barrier to overcoming depression too.³ Let’s explore some other key areas where the overjustification effect can impact us on a systemic level.

Encouraging behavior change

Since motivation is such an important factor in our lives, companies and organizations are always looking for ways to motivate people. However, these often come in the form of extrinsic rewards. Think about general public messaging around exercising. Rarely do we encounter advertising that encourages us to go to the gym just because it feels good to get moving.¹² Instead, marketing messages often focus on external rewards: “Buy these shoes so you can run faster than everyone else,” “Sign up for our fitness class so you can look your best,” “Log a workout now so you can earn that burger later,” and so on.

While research indeed shows that external rewards can motivate people or act as reinforcement for a job well done, the value of these rewards tends to decline as we lose our desire for the rewarding outcome.¹³ If we start replacing intrinsic rewards with extrinsic rewards, our motivation will eventually fade when those extrinsic motivators lose their value, and we have nothing to fall back on. This is why it’s important that we understand the overjustification effect to ensure rewards are being used effectively and cautiously, if at all.

Using both types of rewards effectively is crucial for incentivizing human behavior change at scale. For example, suppose a government organization wants to encourage healthy eating or safer driving behavior. In that case, messaging might be more effective if it focuses on generating internal motivation among individuals instead of exclusively relying on external incentives like cash rewards or “sin taxes.” At the same time, organizations must be careful about adding external rewards to behaviors people are already doing by choice. For instance, introducing monetary rewards for volunteer work can have detrimental effects on people’s existing intrinsic motivation.

Employee activity monitoring

Like external rewards, surveillance can negatively impact motivation. Knowing that we’re being monitored while performing a particular behavior can make us less likely to want to engage in this behavior. For example, one early study on children found that the effects of adult surveillance, even without rewards, decreased their interest in an activity.¹⁴ Essentially, surveillance shifts the attribution of behavior from “I’m doing this because I want to” to “I’m doing this because I’m being watched.” When we’re being monitored, we start to see our actions as driven by extrinsic factors, reducing our internal enjoyment in the process. This insight is of particular importance in the workplace, where keeping a close eye on employees—whether this means looking over their shoulders in the office or monitoring their computer activity remotely—may trigger the overjustification effect and negatively impact their motivation, morale, and performance quality.

There are a number of reasons as to why the overjustification effect exists. Important to many theories is the idea that, as humans, we aren’t necessarily the best at figuring out what motivates our decisions and our behavior.⁴ One explanation could be the self-perception theory, which states that we learn about our likes and dislikes by observing our own behavior.⁴ We gain a deeper understanding of our motivation after an activity has occurred. If we complete a task for its intrinsic value, we observe that we choose to do the task. Alternatively, if we complete a task and are rewarded for it after the fact, we will come to believe we only did it for the reward.⁴ 

Expecting rewards vs. receiving rewards

The anticipation of a reward—rather than the mere existence of a reward—seems to have an important influence on the overjustification effect. One study on school-aged children found that tangible rewards reduced the children’s interest in drawing activities only when these rewards were expected.¹⁵ Several weeks later, children who had engaged in the drawing activity under the expectation of a reward showed less intrinsic interest in the activity than children who had received the same reward unexpectedly. This suggests that engaging in an activity without expecting a reward may be more important for generating intrinsic motivation than whether or not we actually receive rewards for our behavior.

Autonomy and self-determination theory

Another theory for the overjustification effect suggests that external motivation is seen as a coercive force. If a task doesn’t feel voluntary, then we might enjoy it less. Our sense of autonomy plays a crucial role in our decision-making processes. This is why autonomy is a core component of self-determination theory, a fundamental theory of motivation which suggests that we are more likely to engage in behaviors that are motivated by intrinsic rewards or goals.¹⁶ According to self-determination theory, feelings of autonomy are key to intrinsic motivation—to feel internally driven to do something, we must feel like we have control over our actions. When we’re being paid to do something, feelings of obligation or pressure replace this sense of personal freedom. 

Essentially, extrinsic reinforcement feels like a bribe, making us feel pressured to do the activity in question. We no longer feel enjoyment from the activity because it feels less like a personal choice and more like a forced behavior.⁵ In short, intrinsic motivation results from free choice, whereas extrinsic motivation makes us feel like we are being controlled.⁶ Overall, we’re more likely to do something if the behavior is self-determined rather than externally incentivized. As such, proponents of self-determination theory stress the need to foster autonomous forms of motivation to promote desirable behaviors rather than relying on external rewards alone.¹⁶

Motivation, or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest barriers to success and efficiency. It is a huge factor in learning, which is something we do throughout all stages of our lives.

As children, our curiosity is often enough to interest us in learning. However, once we go to school, getting good grades becomes the motivator for learning and reduces how much we actually enjoy the process. Similarly, we may take on a job because it interests us, but once a salary is a quantifier motivating us to perform our tasks, we no longer enjoy the work.

Since important aspects of our lives, like education and employment, are easily affected by the overjustification effect, it is important that we understand it. While it is hard to eliminate all external rewards, like good grades or a salary, the overjustification effect demonstrates that it is important to remember the intrinsic value of activities to retain motivation. By understanding exactly how the overjustification effect manifests itself, educators and companies can most efficiently decide how and when to incentivize people through external rewards, as will be explored in the following section.

Being aware of the overjustification effect can help us decide to keep a few of our passions and hobbies as activities that we do just for fun instead of seeking out an external reward to complete them. However, being aware of the overjustification effect does not necessarily help us avoid being influenced by extrinsic motivators once they are presented to us. Additionally, money as a motivator cannot be wholly ignored as this is how we sustain ourselves. 

It’s important for companies and leaders to take the overjustification effect into consideration when they decide how best to motivate their employees or the public. Rewards are often believed to be a good way to motivate people, however, the overjustification effect suggests that this is only the case for particular kinds of tasks.

The overjustification effect only applies to tasks that people already find intrinsically rewarding—it doesn’t occur for activities they wouldn’t enjoy in the first place.⁷ This means that incentives are most effective when used for dull or tedious tasks. For example, a restaurant chef might see inventory management as the least enjoyable part of their job, while cooking remains inherently satisfying. To maximize motivation, their boss could offer a supplementary reward for completing inventory rather than for cooking, ensuring that incentives enhance engagement without undermining intrinsic motivation.

Moreover, the overjustification effect tends to be less pronounced when rewards are tied to performance quality rather than mere participation. This explains the logic behind end-of-year bonuses in the workplace—it's not just about showing up and completing tasks but consistently performing at a high level. Since the external incentive is contingent on excellence rather than basic effort, people are more likely to perceive it as a legitimate motivator rather than a hollow reward.⁵

One of the earliest demonstrations of overjustification was seen in an experiment conducted by Edward Deci in 1971.⁶ Deci, a professor of psychology and a pioneer of behavioral science, was curious about how external rewards affect intrinsic motivation. At this point, a number of early psychologists had already suggested that extrinsic motivation causes intrinsic motivation to diminish.

In his study, Deci conducted an experiment on undergraduate students with a baseline interest in solving puzzles, suggesting intrinsic motivation. The college students participated in three puzzle-solving sessions. In the first session, all students were asked to complete puzzles without a reward being offered. In the second session, those in the control group were once again asked to complete puzzles with no external incentive, whereas the experimental group was told they would receive $1 for each puzzle they completed during the session. In the third session, the control group underwent the same conditions, and the experimental group was told they would not be paid because there was not enough money available anymore.

Motivation was measured by seeing what participants decided to do when the experimenter left them in the room alone for eight minutes. The experimenter would let them know they were leaving for a few minutes and that they were free to do whatever they wanted while he was gone. Deci then measured how much time the participants worked on the puzzles while the experimenter was gone.

Deci found that when offered money in session two, participants spent over a minute longer on average working on the puzzle while the experimenter was gone. However, in session three, when the external motivator was removed, those same participants spent less time working on the puzzle than the control group did.⁶

From these results, Deci concluded that money, an external reward, caused intrinsic motivation to decrease, as participants in the experimental group no longer found doing the puzzles worth it once the financial incentive was removed. Alternatively, the control group’s behavior stayed relatively consistent throughout the three sessions.⁶ 

In a follow-up experiment, Deci used verbal rewards instead of monetary rewards. Participants were told that they had done very well on the puzzles and given verbal reinforcement during and after subsequent puzzle-solving sessions.⁶ Interestingly, participants who received these verbal rewards maintained their motivation across puzzle-solving sessions—even after removing them—while control groups showed declining motivation. This suggests that verbal rewards avoid imposing external constraints on people’s behavior in the same way that tangible rewards or monetary incentives do.

Deci’s pioneering work in the 1970s eventually culminated in cognitive evaluation theory (CET), a combined effort between Deci and his colleague Richard M. Ryan.¹⁷ CET was developed as a component of Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory to explain how external factors like rewards could impact intrinsic motivation. They argued that perceived autonomy and perceived competence were crucial to intrinsic motivation. Based on these assumptions, rewards that increase perceived competence or support individual autonomy—such as positive feedback—can increase intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, rewards that cause people to attribute their behavior to extrinsic incentives, like money, can decrease intrinsic motivation. These theories of motivation shed light on the factors that influence behavior and laid the groundwork for ongoing research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the field of behavioral science.

The overjustification effect can create unique challenges for digital products, where gamification reward systems are commonly used to encourage engagement. For example, a shopping app might reward users with points they can redeem for discounts, while a fitness tracking app might let people earn badges for completing exercise challenges. The problem is that these external incentives can ultimately backfire by diminishing users’ internal interest in using these platforms.¹⁸ As these external incentives lose their novelty or start to feel arbitrary to the user, they no longer work to maintain engagement. 

Understanding the overjustification effect is important for brands that want to tap into people’s intrinsic motivation and build long-term customer loyalty. The key here is to provide the types of rewards that build intrinsic motivation. Some ways to do this might include allowing users to set personal goals to enhance their autonomy, providing interesting and varied challenges that tie directly to user-determined goals, and delivering valuable informational feedback that reinforces the user’s sense of self-efficacy.¹⁸

Believe it or not, intrinsic motivation is an important component in developing AI agents. Just as intrinsic motivation encourages us humans to engage in behaviors for their own sake, intrinsic motivation encourages AI systems to learn autonomously, allowing these systems to adapt to complex situations and learn from dynamic environments, even in the absence of predefined external rewards.¹⁹ 

Interestingly, AI agents can develop overjustification behaviors when their reward structures prioritize observable metrics.²⁰ When these systems learn from human feedback—and humans only see what the system is outputting—AI systems may be inadvertently encouraged to produce results that are visible to evaluators rather than striving for true performance. For example, this might mean using jargon or providing long-winded answers to appear competent. Essentially, this can cause AI agents to overjustify their behavior to external incentives like surface-level performance metrics, diminishing their intrinsic motivation to pursue genuine understanding or perform complex problem-solving. Due to these challenges, researchers recommend caution when applying reinforcement learning from human feedback in situations when humans can only see part of what AI is doing.²⁰

Deci’s study examined how money affects intrinsic motivation. However, money may have different effects on motivation than other external rewards since it is a necessary component of modern life.

Mark Lepper, Joshua Greene, and Richard Nisbett, important figures in the early days of behavioral science, wanted to examine whether the overjustification effect would occur for a non-monetary reward.⁸

The psychologists examined whether the overjustification effect influenced 3 to 5-year-old children’s desire to draw with felt-tip markers, which is considered an enjoyable activity. There were three different conditions to which children were assigned. In the first condition, the children were told they would receive a special ribbon for drawing with felt tips. In the second condition, the children were not told about the reward they would receive until they had completed the activity. In the third condition, the children were not told about or given any reward for drawing. Afterward, all of the children were observed in a “free-play” setting seven and 14 days after the experiment to see if this impacted how much they would later choose to draw.⁹

Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett found that the children who had been promised a reward for drawing during the study played significantly less with the felt tips during free play. However, the children who were surprised with a reward still showed interest in drawing afterwards. The psychologists concluded that knowing about a reward causes children to believe they enjoy drawing only because of the reward instead of the activity itself and that intrinsic enjoyment for an activity does not return after the reward is no longer an option. They also concluded that the overjustification effect only occurs if the reward is expected.⁸

As previously mentioned, the overjustification effect has a smaller presence when rewards are given for performing well instead of simply completing a task. Motivation can be a huge factor in how well children with learning disabilities perform, meaning that it is important to understand the nuances of the overjustification effect to ensure we are careful with how extrinsic rewards are used.

Dr. Robert Eisenberger, a professor of psychology, wanted to examine the overjustification effect with regard to children with learning disabilities to improve methods for teaching them. Eisenberger conducted a study on 10 preadolescent children with learning difficulties.¹⁰

The students were tested on their reading capabilities. Baseline capabilities were first measured to be able to judge how students were performing during the experiment. During the experiment, one group, the “accuracy group”, received tokens that they could exchange for toys when they read aloud with fewer errors. Another group, the “speed group”, received tokens when they read more quickly. The control group received tokens regardless of their accuracy or speed.¹⁰

After the reading tasks, students performed drawing and story construction tasks. Eisenberg found that students who had been rewarded for a specific skill in reading, either speed or accuracy, were faster or more accurate, respectively, in the following drawing and story construction tasks. The students in the control group, who had been rewarded for completing a task rather than for performing it well, were both slower and less accurate in the subsequent drawing and construction tasks.

From these results, Eisenberg concluded that the overjustification effect occurs for children with learning disabilities only when the reward is not linked to the student’s effort and performance. When the reward is tied to a specific skill, completing a task successfully acts as a reinforcement of that skill instead of diminishing the intrinsic motivation.¹⁰

What it is

The overjustification effect describes the phenomenon where we lose intrinsic motivation to complete an activity that we used to enjoy after a reward is introduced, such as a prize or money, is given to us for completing the activity.

Why it happens

The overjustification effect occurs because when an external reward is given to us for completing an activity, we evaluate that our enjoyment of that activity came from the reward rather than the activity itself. The extrinsic motivator, the reward, replaces our intrinsic motivation to complete the task. This causes us to believe that completing the task was not voluntary because we feel coerced by the reward.

Example 1 – The overjustification effect impacts playing

The overjustification effect still has an impact on activities that seem obviously enjoyable to children, such as drawing with felt-tips. If children are rewarded for drawing, they are less likely to want to draw for fun in the future. The overjustification effect causes children to attribute their enjoyment of drawing to the reward instead of the activity.

Example 2 – Rewards for specific skills diminish the overjustification effect

The overjustification effect only impacts motivation if the external reward is given for mere completion of a task, instead of performing well in a task. When students with learning disabilities were given rewards for a specific skill when reading, they performed better with regards to that skill in subsequent activities. This suggests that if a reward is linked to effort and success, it acts as a reinforcement and does not trigger the overjustification effect.

How to avoid it

By understanding the specific ways in which the overjustification effect manifests itself, teachers and employers can ensure that they are careful and considerate when it comes to giving out rewards. As the overjustification effect is only seen for tasks that people find inherently enjoyable, rewards can be reserved for menial and boring tasks. Additionally, if rewards are given to people for performing well in a task, the overjustification effect is less likely to be seen, so teachers and employers can ensure that rewards are only used to motivate people to do well.

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In this article, our writer Maral Yeganeh, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience, examines how financial incentives impact the amount of weight that people lose. She outlines a study where overweight individuals were offered money as an incentive to lose weight in a 16-week program, and a control group of overweight individuals were not offered any money. While participants who had received financial rewards had lost more weight than individuals in the control group after the 16 weeks, those same participants gained weight between the end of the program and the seven-month checkup. This provides evidence that the overjustification effect means that when a reward is taken away, intrinsic motivation does not return.

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